Wall Street and Washington baddies plot—ploddingly—against the public interest in another lurid shocker from investment banker Frey (The Takeover, 1995). Lewis Webster, senior partner at the venerable securities firm Walker Pryce, puts up-and-coming deal-maker Mace McLain in charge of a new $2 billion fund established to make a killing in the market crash he ostensibly believes is imminent. Although mildly disturbed by his superior's timing and analysis of the economy, ambitious Mace accepts the assignment. At the same time, he's detailed to recruit Rachel Sommers, a whip-smart MBA candidate at Columbia, where alumnus Mace is an instructor. Unbeknownst to the yuppie financier, his venal boss is part of a byzantine scheme engineered by CIA Director Malcolm Becker—a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination who needs big money to replace the cash he's misappropriated in aid of his White House aspirations. With evidence of Webster's hitherto unsuspected insider-trading crimes on file, the spymaster has no trouble blackmailing the elder Wall Street statesman into launching the so- called vulture fund. Leaving nothing to chance, Becker has enlisted a gang of Arab terrorists to wreak havoc throughout the US, precipitating a market collapse. Meanwhile, Mace (who's falling for Rachel) learns from the comely grad student that the sources of his fund's capital are not what he was led to believe. His original suspicious confirmed, Mace hits the road and in a West Virginia backwater unearths evidence of the Becker/Webster intrigue. Concurrently, a band of heavily armed intruders seizes control of the nuclear plant that supplies New York City's electricity. Before he can deliver the nation from the evil conspirators, however, Mace must save his own hide and reclaim Rachel from the Becker minions who've abducted her. A lone upright bull takes on lowlife bears and power-mad politicos in a paranoid fantasy almost totally devoid of pace or suspense. (First printing of 150,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-93986-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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